The Crooked Mile
by biccs pudding
Summary: The story begins where Burial at Sea Episode 1 ends. Elizabeth is trapped in Rapture with Sally, the Little Sister as her ward and only companion. Priorities shift and the endgame is cast in shadows. An AU retelling of Episode 2.
1. Chapter 1

(Disclaimer: BioShock and all of its characters belong to 2K and Irrational Games. There is no profit made from this.

A huge 'Thank You' to my attentive betas Wrench Lurker, and AspirationRealized.) Cover art by Ben Lo.

The Big Daddy retracted his drill from Comstock's body as he collapsed to the floor with an agonized scream. The woman standing before him, her face covered in blood, raised her gaze at the creature whose helmet glowed with a not-so-different shade of crimson. Everything was perfectly still for that split second, save for the dying man's gurgling as he tried to crawl away from the scene with his last efforts.

Elizabeth eyed the hulk warily and began to take a tentative step backwards. The red lights did not flicker, instead he let out a terrifying howl and took an unmistakably aggressive stance, readying the drill that was still dripping with the fallen prophet's blood. The young woman did not flinch any further.

"I don't want to hurt you, you hear me? You don't need to do this." She knew well that reasoning with the beast would be futile, but her conscience urged her to at least try. Even as she spoke, a tear started to form behind the Big Daddy, a slice of cold space that would have appeared the deepest black if it were not for the otherworldly greyish shimmering.

The Daddy launched himself towards Elizabeth drill-first as the vacuum began to halt him in his steps. The tip of the drill, wildly spinning and shaking from the struggle against the elemental force, stopped merely an inch away from the girl's face who herself was gripping the latched cover of the vent, holding on for dear life. Even the deafening whizz couldn't shut out the giant's desperate cry, as he was sucked into the darkness with no chance of ever getting out. As he disappeared from sight, the tear closed itself like if it had never been there at all.

"I'm sorry," She said to nobody in particular as her feet touched solid ground again. _The poor fellow didn't deserve this_, she thought. Joey Thompson, 26 years old, had been convicted for smuggling Bibles in Fontaine's ring before he's been selected for conversion into a Bouncer. Loved painting and chocolate muffins. Would have died of ADAM deprivation 2 months later.

Perhaps killing him now really was a favor.

To Elizabeth, each and every timeline was an open book. Every outcome of every possible moment was at her disposal like mere footnotes in a catalogue. But the moment she herself gave them the tiniest of pokes, everything that was crystal clear before morphed into an impenetrable grey fog.

The Luteces called it the Arcane Variable. The one thing she couldn't calculate with. The twins made it seem laughably easy to just flick the right switches at the right junctions towards the desired outcome, but when she attempted to do the same she left a decapitated baby and a stray Comstock in her wake.

He was supposed to let her go. Anna was supposed to be pulled out of the tear in time. It shouldn't have gone so horribly wrong.

He had to pay. Blood for blood. He, and all the others. They are all going to pay and she will hunt them down one by one if need be. She walked along the reddened path that the still-struggling Comstock streaked on the floor and kneeled in front of him to give him a last, condemnatory look. It was a small wonder that the man was still alive with the gaping, gory hole where his stomach used to be. He stared into the girl's eyes as his own ones started to get more hollow with each second. He was trying to say something, but the blood that was still flowing from his mouth made it unintelligible. "Arghm..*cough*.. shoorr..*_cough_* .."

"It's not enough. Not by a long shot." Elizabeth's cold voice got even frostier with each syllable. "You stole that child from her father, and after you… _murdered_ her you fled like the coward you are. Do you know what that baby felt when the edges closed around her neck? Do you know what Booker DeWitt felt when he was holding Anna's bloody remains close to his chest? Did you even care? DID YOU?" She shouted as tears were forming in her eyes. "He hung himself in his office two weeks later, while you were opening yours to start your glamorous new life here."

Comstock couldn't hold his head up any longer and so the woman straightened back up. Another rift opened beyond the near lifeless body, engulfing him in its reach. In the background stood a distinctly birdlike, massive metal skeleton surrounded by elaborate charts on boards and men clad in white. Elizabeth uttered her goodbyes, "Your debts will take a long, _long_ time to get repaid, and your old friend Fink is a bit short of suitable specimens for his project. Consider this a chance to absolve yourself, _prophet_." The man couldn't even make a sound anymore, his fading eyes still fixated on the woman as the shrinking rim closed on him.

The wayward Lamb stayed where she was for a few minutes longer, her empty gaze locked to the spot where the fugitive sinner had been lying. She was snapped out of her ruminations by a soft whimper coming out of the vent. Elizabeth swiftly returned, stepping onto the base to get a glimpse of the forlorn little face and speaking with all the tenderness she could muster, shutting the earlier gruesome scene out of her mind.

"Sally, you can come out now. Booker's gone. He can't hurt you anymore."

The petite Little Sister wasn't entirely convinced. "Where's Mr. Bubbles?" She asked with a high-pitched tone.

How could she answer this, really?

"He... he left, Sally. He won't be able to come back, but he told me to take care of you. I'm here to help, little one. Could you please just..." As Elizabeth grabbed hold of the girl's frail arm she immediately tried to back away, standing at bay against her pull.

"No, no, NO!" She was starting to get hysterical now, twisting her small body in the most absurd ways to get out of Elizabeth's grip. "Let GO! MR. BUBBLES!"

"Sally, please!" She kept her hold on her and yanked with all her might, finally getting the little girl out of her hidey-hole and into her arms. That did little to stop her tantrums though.

"HELP, MR. B!" She cried over and over again, not ceasing her fidgeting for a second. Elizabeth herself was getting more desperate by the minute. She couldn't lose her now.

"Shh, it's okay, I won't take your ADAM, you won't get hurt, I promise. Please, Sally."

At that, the girl gave her an accusatory glare with those inhuman, glowing eyes. "YOU made the hidey hole so hot, I heard you! You're a big bad meanie! LET GO!"

It hurt more than the child might have intended. Because it was true. Elizabeth cursed herself inwardly for her earlier disregard of Sally's safety that managed to float past her veil of bloodthirst so easily.

She suddenly felt disgusted with herself. That was something that had never happened before... had it not? She reminded herself of the coded note her future self sent her so long ago... _Or was it just a day..?_. She thought of her as the broken one, the one she had to do her utmost to avoid ending up being. Yet here she was, closest to that fate as ever, blinded by some twisted sense of justice that didn't leave an inch of space for rationality. Was it a constant? Was she destined to fail? No matter, she had to clean up the mess she had made, just like the broken one.

Just like Booker. The apple didn't fall far from the tree at all.

She didn't let go of the fidgeting little figure, and driven by a sudden instinct she hugged her close while softly murmuring in her ear.

"Shh, it's alright, you'll be okay, I'm sorry..." Surprisingly enough, Sally started to calm down in her arms, listening to her steady heartbeat, her cries slowly dying out.

"I want Daddy with me." She whispered into Elizabeth's shoulder through a quiet sob. "I know the feeling, sweetheart. I really do." She said, gently caressing the girl's back. "I'll help you get out of this nasty place, I know a nice lady who can cure you. I'll take you there now, alright?"

Sally struck a curious face at that. "Are we going to Lilly Poppy?"

"What's that, sweetheart?" asked the woman, eyebrows raised.

"Lilly Poppy! That's where all the angels are dancing! We'll make the lillies pop with Mr Bubbles. Are we going there?" Elizabeth didn't quite know how to answer at first, but she didn't want to risk getting the erratic Little Sister upset again. She looked into her hopeful yet haunting plain white orbs.

"Yes. You just have to hold on to me a minute longer. We're getting out of here."

She stood up while still holding Sally, prepared to open another rift in space-time, concentrating her thoughts on Brigid Tenenbaum's hideout.

She gave one last disgusted frown at the shoddy establishment and at her own blood soaked attire as she stretched her hand towards something only she could see. Or rather, what she should see.

Something wasn't right. She couldn't pinpoint the place that had been pictured in her head bright as day a mere minute ago. Elizabeth closed her eyes, furrowing her brows with the effort and clinching her teeth as her hand began shaking. A tear started to slowly crack open to reveal a grand city with the tallest buildings she's ever seen. It would have appeared strangely familiar._ Is this New York?_

If the thick smoke hadn't been obstructing the view. Loud sirens and distant screams pierced their ears as they noticed the colossal lizard-like monster rampaging between the towering skyscrapers. Just as the fearsome creature turned its open jaw in their direction, teeth as big as swords, Elizabeth managed to shut the gate tight, panting heavily.

Sally didn't seem a least bit frightened or surprised. "That wasn't Lilly Poppy!" she said with a disappointed expression.

"N-No... it wasn't," stammered the still-dumbfounded woman who even forgot to blink for a few moments.

Something was definitely wrong. She tried to think of another place, another time, anywhere that wasn't here in this musty wreck of a store. They could try going back to Columbia if only until she could figure out what was going on. Somewhere at least relatively peaceful.

"Okay... let's try Battleship Bay." She raised her arm again, closed her eyes and focused every corner of her mind on the sunlit beach that became synonymous with 'freedom' to the once caged young girl.

Another tear began to form in front of them and this time it lead to an ocean of some kind, still water and gentle waves as far as the eye can see. Cold, salty foam poured to their feet through the opening until Elizabeth abruptly dismissed this one as well.

She couldn't reach it, couldn't bring forward what had been accessible to her before with a snap of a finger. It was just slipping further away from her each time she wanted to grab hold of it, becoming translucent like some elusive memory. Maybe it was indeed just that, a memory. She couldn't tell anymore. Something was missing and she couldn't quite grasp what it was exactly, a sort of link mayb-

Her eyes snapped open.

The Doors. She couldn't see the Doors.

In that exact moment, a television screen flickered to life on the far side of the store, the static of the transmission subsiding as the still image of a man's stern-looking face came into focus. A deep, imperative voice echoed from the damp walls as Andrew Ryan began to speak.

"Do you know what they call someone who enters a man's home uninvited, oh Lamb of Columbia? A thief. And I do not remember inviting you into my city."

Elizabeth could feel his gaze pierce right through her, even though the man's eyes were covered by the brim of his fedora.

The King and God of Rapture continued. "You see, protecting the ideals of this secret haven proves to be quite unpleasant when certain individuals, able to bend the very core of our physical world on a whim, are running amok. Real competition simply cannot exist between honorable lions and an underhanded virus. The good Mr. Suchong here was kind enough to provide a… solution for this problem, and plucked this little parasite out of the air to even the odds."

"How…?" The woman interceded, eyes narrowing.

"I have my means. You sure as well remember that, Miss Comstock. I don't claim to understand what you are, but I know that you're special. There is business we can do together, and so I give you a choice." There was a lengthy pause before he carried on, changing to a menacing tone. "Die a miserable and undoubtedly painful death by the hands of the inmates in this lovely prison you got yourself into, or work for me, and I'll send my best men to assist you in your plight and return you to the city for the valuable employee of Ryan Industries you are. Who knows, with your talents, you could easily rise high enough to be part of my Inner Circle, if not the Council itself…"

Elizabeth took a deep breath through her nose, a determined look on her face. "I don't know how you found out about me or my powers but if there's one thing I'm sure about in this godforsaken world, it's that I won't participate in your petty games, Ryan." She tightened her hold on Sally for good measure. "I'm leaving this wretched place with or without your consent and I'm taking the girl with me."

"If it's a Little Sister you want, that shouldn't stand in the way of commerce. I have dozens of them."

"I won't leave without her, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

The screen was crackling along with the rhythm of Ryan's laugh. "I already did, Miss Comstock…"

"Don't call me that," mumbled the woman through gritted teeth.

"I sincerely hope that you will be able to see reason before the wolves come for you, dear Lamb. There won't be a Shepherd jumping to your rescue this time."

The device went black with a quiet beep, leaving the two fugitives alone in the moldy installation yet again.

"Now we could use Daddy here for sure!" moaned Sally.

Elizabeth, too deep in thought to even listen to her, just nodded numbly.


	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth's mind was racing with questions. What had they done to her powers? How did they manage to do it? How did they know what to look for? Was Suchong really that much of a genius? How did she not see all this before?

Maybe if she had not been so preoccupied with her carefully woven plan and actually bothered to look further than that, then she surely would have... but no, she wouldn't have seen it if she had wanted to... right?

_No point in dwelling on that now_. She frowned at her own inability to act quickly and effectively enough. She just had to linger here and rub it in Comstock's face...

_Damn it. Damn it all._

The little girl in her arms started to get anxious. "I'll go ask some angels for another way to Lilly Poppy." She said with a determined look. Elizabeth put her down, still deep in thought, uncertainty radiating from her every move.

"Okay... we do have to find another way, but I need you to stay close to me at all times, Sally." She was looking straight into the child's eyes in an attempt to get the seriousness of the situation across to her. That visage of plain white didn't become any less disturbing. "No wandering off, and no looking for angels. When I ask you to be quiet, you stay quiet, alright?"

Sally wasn't all too happy to hear that. "Daddy never tells me what to do. You're no fun."

Elizabeth sighed, this was starting to get tiresome. "Sally, if you want to go to that nice place you have to trust m-"

Both of them picked their heads up to the clattering noise echoing from the stairways. They were not alone anymore. Muffled speech and nervous laughs could be heard from the corridor that connected the toy store with the rest of the department. The one she and Comstock used to enter. The only way out.

"Oh no..." whispered Elizabeth the same time Sally joyfully exclaimed "Angels!". The woman reflexively pressed her hand over the little girl's mouth, swooped her up and dashed towards the cover of the great central pillar.

The distant chatter became more audible as the unexpected guests crept closer and began descending the stairs.

"Now where's that grand whoop-de-doo them havin' here? Rude folk they are, not inviting us fine gents, rude indeed! Ain't they, Billy?"

Elizabeth slowly moved her head to peek at the newcomers from the shadow of their hiding place, still keeping Sally from uttering a sound. It was two male splicers. The chatty one was swinging a wooden stick around his head between his mad snickers as he led on "Billy", a golem-like figure of ice and muscle.

_A Frosty. Great._

Those things gave even Comstock a run for his money and she did not have any weapons, save for her Air Grabber. The odds were not in her favor. They would have to sneak past them somehow, or wait until they leave. That thought was quickly abandoned however, upon hearing the next line of the splicer. "They're here somewhere, Billy boy. I smell fresh meat. Fresh meat!"

She began frantically looking for another exit and her eyes spotted something on the lower level. An opening in the wall, surrounded by the signature grey halo of a tear.

The only problem was getting there unnoticed. Elizabeth threw a worried glance at the confused girl before her. Subtlety was surely not one of Sally's fortés, she imagined. Still, they had to work with what they had.

She knelt down to be at the level of Sally's eyes, crossed her own lips with an index finger as a warning, then slowly pulled her other hand away from the child's mouth, hoping she would not start screaming at the same instant.

Thankfully, she did not. There was this odd calmness emanating from her that only Little Sisters seemed to possess. Elizabeth guided Sally's gaze towards the tear. "There's our way out," she whispered while silently taking off her high heels. "I can put a hole into that wall. You don't see it, but it will appear when we get there. Follow me and be really, really quiet, okay?" The girl answered with a short nod, mouth still agape.

The woman clenched her shoe in her fist and threw it to the far corner of the store, where it landed with a loud clank. The splicers' attention immediately turned towards the source of the sound. "H-honey? Is that you?"

_Oldest trick in the book,_ Elizabeth smirked to herself. The two ruffians quickly sprung down to the lowest floor and out of sight. Here was their moment. The older girl tiptoed to the ledge, shortly followed by the younger one. She carefully stepped over the handrail and dropped to the lower story in perfect silence, motioning for Sally to do the same.

The tiny Sister squeezed herself through under the balustrade, but looking down on the three meters drop, she stopped in her tracks. The splicers' voices in the background became more and more frustrated as they bashed the remaining furniture in search for their victims. "Come on out, sweeties! Where's the festive spirit, eh?"

Sally still did not budge, so Elizabeth started to nervously wave her hands, indicating that she would catch her.

The girl reluctantly leapt from the edge and fell right into the waiting arms, but the woman had slightly underestimated the force of the impact and she landed squarely on her bottom accompanied by a loud thud.

Next thing they heard was the click-clack of agitated steps closing in on their position.

Elizabeth quickly scrambled up, dragging Sally by the hand. "Run! Now!"

They were dashing towards the yet invisible opening when a sparkling blast of ice flew past Sally, missing her by just a split of a hair. It froze a puddle behind them and they heard the Chatty Splicer slip on it, swearing as he kissed the ground. "Goddammit Billy! Aim at the brat!"

Elizabeth opened the tear with the crack in the wall and pushed Sally into it first before squeezing herself through. The Frosty cast another projectile, going straight for Elizabeth's head while she managed to close the tear behind them in the last millisecond. A big icy smear took the place of the hole in the wall and the two runaways could finally catch a breath.

"I don't think he's called Billy," stated Sally rather matter-of-factly. Elizabeth just gave her a surprised look as she picked off small icicles clinging to her hair. This little creature could not be more off-putting if she tried.

She gave up on her attempt to shape her hairdo into a presentable state again and snatched her wig off altogether, revealing short brown curls damp with sweat. "It was starting to get itchy anyway."

Sally's face lit up like she just witnessed a magical transformation from a bedtime story. "Are you a fairy?"

Elizabeth chuckled a bit at the thought. "I wish I was, sweetheart. See? It's all fake." She placed the wig on the girl's head and could not resist a snigger at the comical sight. "Well, ladies and gents, would you take a look at Rapture's new diva?"

Even Sally started to giggle at that. She looked like a living doll, if a somewhat creepy one. Elizabeth couldn't remember the last time she had a laugh and it was all the more soothing to see the little girl do the same. It was elevating for both of them.

"Then I might as well get rid of these, too," said the woman, reaching into her blouse and taking out two cotton pads from her bra. "No need to play the hard-to-get anymore." Sally looked on in astonishment. "Uhm... I guess you shouldn't try _these_ on." She tossed them to a pile of garbage in the corner and Sally did the same with the wig after a bit of hesitation.

Elizabeth took in their immediate surroundings and stepped into what appeared to be a maintenance elevator, Sally in tow. "Well let's see where this takes us." She pulled the lever and they descended to an even shadier part of the once lively department store. There were no doors in sight along the dimly lit corridor, only a narrow ventilation shaft. The two opted to crawl through, carefully avoiding glass shards on the floor and the attention of the splicers lurking nearby.

Reaching the other end they dropped on a soft carpet and Elizabeth noticed a thug standing in the doorway with his back to them. The woman motioned for Sally to stay where she was as she quietly pulled out her Air Grabber. With the carpet muffling the steps of her almost bare feet, she slinked behind the unsuspecting splicer like a cat closing on its prey, then slowly lifted her weapon for a strike.

_This better work._

*clonk*

He was out cold. Elizabeth let out a relieved sigh and peeked beyond the door. It seemed like a nursery of sorts with children's drawings, animal figures on the wall, and thankfully, without any more lunatics around.

"Juicy Angel!"

Elizabeth turned her head back just in time to see Sally kneeling down near the unconscious splicer, taking his right arm in her hands and preparing to bite into his vein.

"Sally, no!" The woman lunged at the girl in a flash and snatched her away from the body. "Whatever do you think you're doing?"

The Little Sister just looked at her innocently. "I don't have my pokie stick with me, so I'll suck out the ADAM from him."

Elizabeth's expression distorted to something between disgusted and horrified. "Is... is _this_ what they made you do?"

Sally did not seem to understand the question. "All good girls gather," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, didn't you hear? Today is the gathering-free day for every girl in Rapture. They always hold it on New Year's Eve, the city is full of posters about it. I thought you knew..." Lying had become such a second nature to Elizabeth recently it was scary.

"Really? Is it today?"

"Yes. Everyone deserves a day off once in a while, right?" She was not comfortable with misleading the girl, but she had to reduce all of her more... conspicuous activities to a minimum.

She put her down again and Sally's attention was now taken by an educational short playing in the next room. Elizabeth could hear it was something about those 'parasites' again. She used this moment of peace to properly assess their situation.

_So, I can still open tears I find, but cannot create them or control them. It almost feels like the way I was back in Columbia, which means..._

A Siphon. Ryan had a Siphon.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. She could not believe she was outsmarted so easily with the same thing that had shackled her all her life. But... at least a Siphon can be destroyed. She did it before, she could do so again, with or without the help of a giant mechanical bird. It just had to be located first, then she could figure out the rest. First and foremost though, she had to get Sally to safety. That actually seemed like the hardest part as of now with every outlaw of Rapture out to get them in this inescapable hellhole. If only she could just get her powers back for a second it would be so much easier, she could just flash in and out of here like the Luteces used to do.

The Luteces. Surely they could... They are listening, are they not? She would just have to shout or...

"Chocolate..."

"Or cream?"

Elizabeth sprinted towards the showroom where she heard the ever-elusive twins' voices filter out from. She hastily turned at the corner, and there they were, kneeling in front of Sally, each balancing a plate on their hand. Robert held a slice of chocolate-filled cake, while Rosalind held a cream-filled one. Both looked extremely appetizing. Sally glanced back and forth between them in a visibly indecisive manner.

"Chocolate is an ageless classic…" prodded Robert.

"But you cannot go wrong with cream," cut in Rosalind.

"Oh, you can't be serious," said Elizabeth, throwing up her arms exasperatedly.

Sally looked at her, supposedly for help with the choosing. "I can only take one, what do you think tastes better?"

The twins smugly raised their gaze at the woman who was a bit taken aback by the question. It felt oddly comforting that Sally was actually asking for advice from her even when they just knew each other for a mere hour. Elizabeth almost felt humbled but could not help seeing her younger self in the girl and think about how badly she had been burned herself by being too trusting before.

"Well… Chocolate seems tasty enough."

Robert flashed a barely noticeable but knowing smile as Sally took the slice from his plate with a quiet 'thank you' and started greedily chewing on the delicious piece while continuing her exploration of the room.

"About as expected," he mumbled behind his smirk.

"It was but a lucky guess, brother. We did not have enough previous input to safely establish a tendency in probabilities," retorted Rosalind.

"You are still a sore loser, sister."

"Do you mind?" asked an increasingly irritated Elizabeth, drawing their attention back to her. "What took you so long? We could have died back there!"

Rosalind did not seem the least bit concerned. "In another ocean, you did."

"It is quite surprising that someone such as you could so easily forget about the way the universe diverges after one's decisions," added Robert. "After all, it was you who chose to come back here…"

"Back, where she has no right to be," interceded Rosalind, talking to her brother like the other woman was not even present.

"Back… where she doesn't belong."

"Doesn't belong? I didn't mean for anything of this to happen, I didn't know…"

"We know you didn't," said the male twin.

"Yet, you went through with it anyway," said the female one.

Elizabeth's face shifted from being offended to simply confused. "Are you referring to that variable? The one that-"

"The Arcane Variable," put in Rosalind, with quite a bit of pride and a slight upward tilt of her chin.

"You know, that doesn't sound terribly scientific. It's more like something out of a children's book," confessed Elizabeth sheepishly.

The redheaded woman's eyes narrowed to a slit, while Robert could not suppress a chuckle at the bold statement.

"If you ever happen to observe a previously unknown phenomenon such as this in either the future, past or present, you can name it whatever you please." Rosalind's words could actually cut if they were just a bit sharper.

Elizabeth bent her head apologetically. "What I mean is… you could at least help get Sally to a safer location until I deal with all this. Please?" She put on her most innocent and pleading expression from her repertoire that always seemed to work so well on Booker. Well, most of the time.

The twins however, were not as easily manipulated.

"What happened to the girl is your responsibility and yours alone."

Robert, as always, seemed to have a less hostile attitude towards her, but his words were not much warmer than his sister's. "We had our own cross to bear, child, and it took an excruciating amount of work to get you out of your plight and free you from the shackles of an uneven universe."

"And she spent that freedom to enact some petty revenge."

"Gratuitous bloodshed."

"A futile exercise." The two recited their accusations, and Elizabeth never felt smaller before.

"Now it's time for you to fully understand what your own toxic imprint can cause to a world that has no place for it," continued Robert.

"It is already done…"

"Will have to be done…"

"And _you_ will have to do it."

The Lamb dropped her shoulders in defeat. It was obvious at this point that she could not count on the twins' help. "But… how am I to do that by myself? I'm just a helpless girl again, I don't have Booker with… Oh god, Booker!" Her eyes widened when the realization dawned on her. "Is he still..?"

"Where you left him." Rosalind's face became expressionless rather than stern.

"Far from all this." Robert's eyes were just inscrutable.

"I _have_ to get back." Elizabeth appeared to be determined for a second, but fell back to uncertainty once again. "What if I don't make it? What if I fail again? Then he'll-"

"As Mr. DeWitt would surely point out," cut in the male Lutece, "you don't give yourself enough credit, child."

Even Rosalind eased up a bit. "The fact that you're standing here now breathing, is in itself a defiance of the overwhelming odds you never knew about." She lifted her plate to Elizabeth, adopting a highly uncharacteristic feature, a smile of all things. "Care for some cream? You must be starving."

Elizabeth dazedly accepted the cake, not sure whether she should be grateful or insulted.

"Uhm… thank you, but this will hardly make things any-"

She looked up to face empty air in their place.

"-easier?"

_I don't know what I expected._


	3. Chapter 3

_Hey ya. Sorry for the long wait(s), betas are busy. Updates will be slow (as you may have noticed), but steady. Fear not, this story_ has _an end, and it_ will _be finished, hopefully within the year. Yeah, I too hate the ones that get abandoned halfway. I'm planning 8-10 chapters overall plus the epilogue. Just be patient with me, I'm a lazy dog._

_On with the chapter now._

* * *

She stared a little more at the creamy slice in front of her. At least the twins did not leave them empty-handed, as she was indeed hungry as a hunter. Sally already finished hers and returned to Elizabeth, tugging at her skirt with chocolate-stained hands. "Where do we go now?"

_Good question_, thought the woman. But she did not want to convey the continuous impression of a clueless airhead. For the child's sake, she had to at least act like she had the slightest idea about what she was doing. Booker did this all the time, it could not be that hard.

_Yeah, and it always ended so well._

Elizabeth gently wiped off Sally's begrimed face with her sleeve, "How was the cake?"

The girl licked her lips again, in case there were any more sweet crumbs left around her mouth, "Tasty! But a little chewy in the core."

"Well, it can't hurt, I guess." _Who am I kidding? I could devour a whole dessert table by myself._

She ate it up in two, particularly big bites, almost choking on something lumpy. She hastily removed it from the mouthful of goods to see what it was.

A crinkled piece of paper.

Elizabeth's eyes kindled at the sight for an instant. _The uncanny duo might have given us a hint after all. _She unfolded the tiny sheet, which depicted the familiar cage symbol and a drawing of Monument Tower on the other side. Nothing else.

The woman's brief glint of hope quickly turned into a disappointed frown. She voiced her reaction aloud, as if shouting for someone that was not there anymore, "Is this some kind of joke? Because I'm not laughing."

She angrily stuffed the note into her belt and started searching the room for anything remotely useful. She had a Siphon to find and a girl to take care of. A simple Air Grabber and a few unreliable tears might not be enough for future encounters with the lurking horrors that would await them.

She was busy shuffling through a drawer when Sally timidly approached her, and as was her custom, she asked something completely unexpected.

"What's your name?"

The woman stopped her activity for a second to give the girl a perplexed look. It just hit her that amidst all the commotion, she never actually introduced herself.

"I...It's Elizabeth," she said, trying to put on a reassuring expression. She even managed a small smile.

"It's a pretty name. Whatcha looking for, Elizabeth?"

"Something we could use against... bad angels." A determined Sally then hopped to the next room to find something that matched the description.

Elizabeth could not stop being fascinated about the innocence that beamed from the child's every step and the contrast it had with this uncaring place that had surrounded her all her life. It was not too long ago when she herself had been in an oddly similar state, in an even more similar situation. And then the twins pop up in much the same manner to offer nothing but a meaningless choice and some vague riddles.

She subconsciously reached for her pendant, only to have her eyes open wide when she only touched an empty space on the neck of her blouse, with an untangled ribbon.

_No... please no. Where did I lose it? It was there when... Oh, it could be anywhere by now_.

She was not sure why she suddenly felt so disheartened about this tiny piece of nothing, her own meaningless little choice. Or rather Booker's. The only thing she kept from her own world of imprisonment. She took a deep, mournful breath.

_It doesn't matter._

Sally reappeared around the corner with a burly Teddy bear in hand, eagerly showing it to Elizabeth. "Look, Mr. Buttons is good with angels!"

A tired sigh escaped the woman's lips as she took the doll from her. She remembered having one very much like it back in her tower. Songbird had brought it to her one morning after she had been nagging him for a new toy all month. When she inevitably got bored of it about a year later, she decided to give her worn little companion a makeover and changed it's color to flaming red. The Teddy was gone the next day and she had never seen it again. Now she was wondering what had happened to the thing.

"Sweetheart, that's not exactly what I had in m-"

She just noticed something protruding from the back of the toy's head. She pulled it out to discover it as some kind of bolt with a small bell attached to its pointed tip.

"I wonder what this belongs to. It sure seems like something we could use."

They continued to scan the room and Elizabeth soon found the device in question, carefully positioned to block the door to the next area. She inspected it intently, then loaded the weapon with the curious bolt, which softly clicked into place. Now she had a mild suspicion about what the little bell was for.

"Someone must have been really desperate if he used _this_ just to lock the entrance." She did not see any corpses on the way here, the fellow might have got lucky. But as she peeked through the glass, she could see the possible source of his or her plight. Three splicers, all regulars. No guns.

Elizabeth decided not to waste her singular ammunition on them, she had a feeling it would serve them better at a later time, among more dire circumstances. This bunch did not seem all that bright, she could pick them out one by one using the hooks around the ceiling. She turned to the silently waiting Sally, "I'll take care of these. Just stay here, be silent, and wait until I come back for you, okay?"

"Will you really come back? You're big and smart. You could get out easier without me, you know," said Sally, awkwardly kicking the nonexistent dust in front of her.

Elizabeth could not yet figure out the child's frequent mood swings, now she seemed rather distrustful again. Not that she could blame her.

"I won't abandon you," stated Elizabeth firmly.

Sally looked up as if she was half expecting this answer, "You wouldn't, would you?"

The woman gave her shoulder an assuring stroke, then quietly opened the door and slipped into the canteen and behind her first victim. He was standing alone in the front area, while two women were chatting away on the other side. A hit on the head and a collapsing body later, Elizabeth was already hanging above them.

"And what does Ryan the Lion warn us? Those who cannot create will always steal from those who do," rambled the first one.

"Never mind that now. Tell the minister he'll have to wait. It's my daughter's wedding, not his," replied the second.

They were walking around the room at a leisurely pace and did not seem like splitting up any time soon. Elizabeth was struggling to keep her hold on the Air Grabber.

_I did not think this through_.

"'Where's your empathy?' asks Peter the parasite while he picks your pocket," continued the crazed dame. "You know this word, _empathy_. You'll find it in a dictionary under L-I-E."

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. She could swear she felt her bones stretching.

"Come now, this rubbish has no place at the ceremon-"

They noticed the fallen man on the floor. "Not _again_!" The two quickly spread out in opposite directions, finally letting their stalker to softly land in their dead space. Getting rid of her heels earlier proved to be a wise decision. She approached one panicked lunatic and landed a now well-practiced blow to her head. Then she heard a gunshot from behind.

"Tramps were not invited! We have rules here!" The last splicer sent another bullet her way, shattering a glass on the shelf just past her shoulder.

Elizabeth hastily rolled behind a counter before the woman's aim got any better.

_Where did she get a pistol? Some plan I had there. I could really use a tear right now_.

But there were none. Just more shots hitting her cover. Then a small pause, as she heard the maniac slowly closing in to get a better angle. She readied her crossbow for a distracting shot, when a sharp whistle sounded from the nursery and made the splicer turn away for a second. Enough for Elizabeth to grab hold of a bottle and throw it at her. "Catch this, Dimwit!"

It shattered right below her vertex, with enough force to make her a bit dizzy. Elizabeth immediately shot out from behind the bar, thwarted the screaming woman, and pulled her arms behind so she could truss them up with the red ribbon hanging from her neck.

"Mind your blasted manners when the cleric is speaking!" cried the splicer, her hands now safely cuffed and her dropped pistol out of reach. Elizabeth tore a piece of the other woman's dress and constrained the squirming creature's swollen ankles with it for good measure.

She picked up the pistol and checked its cylinder, only to find it empty. "Hmph. Typical."

Her frustrated prisoner on the floor did not finish her fit, "Go on and just smack the groom as well!"

"Oh just shut up, will you." She shuffled through the room, fetching a few unopened cans of pineapples, a bottle of soda, and twenty-four Rapture dollars altogether. There was also an audio diary from the former cook, but aside from the usual bashing of Ryan, it did not prove to be all that interesting, so she went back to retrieve Sally.

The little girl was patiently waiting for her, right on the spot she had been before. Elizabeth softly patted her hair. "Good call with the whistle, but please, don't ever do it again."

"You were in trouble."

"Yes, but if you draw attention to yourself I might not be able to help you in time," explained the woman.

"Oh, okay."

They headed for the locked exit of the canteen, and Elizabeth started working on the lock.

The still fidgeting splicer screamed at them some more, "You disrupted a family event, you tramp! Atlas will set this right, you'll see. ATLAS WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD!"

"Noisy angel," stated Sally.

"Don't mind her," said Elizabeth, opening the lock with a satisfying click. "Off we go."

The pair continued their route through a few corridors where the girl found two more bolts in a puddle. The woman recognized them to be slightly different than the previous one, instead of a bell, it had some kind of strange liquid contained below the tip. "It's probably phencyclidine or sodium thiopental," she mused.

"Phencycle soddy-," tried Sally.

"Sleepy darts," smiled Elizabeth.

"Ooh."

As they stepped through the next door, Elizabeth's eyes met the first thing in hours that could be considered as a real clue. A billboard.

"The Silver Fin restaurant, closed by the order of Doctor Suchong," she read the sign aloud. The very same place she used as her entrance to this world.

_Second entrance, actually._

And Suchong shut it down right after. "Well, it's as good a start as any."

Sally already started to explore the place, quickly bumping into a kinetoscope at the front of something akin to a night club.

"Can I see it?" asked the girl innocently. Elizabeth stepped closer, frowning as she saw the title "Sex without compromise". Curiosity got the better of her however, and after watching the short herself, she had an awkward blush on her cheeks and a definite answer for Sally.

"No."

"But-"

"It's... adult business. It would bore you. Also," she pointed at the entrance of the 'Cupid's Arrow', "we're _not_ going in there."

After all, she already knew the place, and its piquant interior was definitely not for a child's eyes. Even though she was tempted to check if her old dress was still in the same place she had left it.

Sally opened her mouth for another word, but thought the better of it and closed it.

Elizabeth then approached the still functioning Circus of Values machine nearby and bought herself a First Aid Kit. Luckily, the thing had been hacked a while ago, so she could afford a bag of chips for her ward as well. She sat down on the stairs to bandage her feet after having them cut with glass shards a while ago. She did not realize how much it hurt until all the adrenaline subsided.

"Why didn't it heal up by now?" sounded the peculiar Little Sister's next odd question. Elizabeth looked at her confusedly, "What do you mean? It happened about an hour ago."

"My cuts go bye-bye at once. I thought yours would too."

The woman descended her gaze to inspect the girl's bare feet, dirty as they were, but free of the tiniest of scars.

_Incredible. Must have something to do with the ADAM they carry._

She handed the bag of chips and the soda to her, then opened a can of pineapples for herself. "Eat as much as you can. I don't know when we would find something next."

Sally complied, eating up the snack in a flash. After the hearty meal, they used the elevator to ascend to the floor where Elizabeth remembered the Silver Fin had been. They stepped out to an empty walkway with echoes of someone playing a guitar in the distance. They cautiously closed on the source of the song, with Elizabeth having a firm grip on the crossbow. If the man was aware of their presence, he did not give any sign of it. He just kept singing to the rhythm, strumming the guitar in his lap.

".._.If Ryan can have it, why can't I? Why can't I have a slice of that pie?._.."

"Should we have kept a piece of cake for him too?" asked a confused Sally.

"I doubt it would have helped him sweetheart. Let's just... leave him be," answered Elizabeth while herding the girl towards Bathyspheres Deluxe, crossbow still at the ready. What awaited them behind the door was a huge intersection of once prominent shops and pricey bars, now ransacked by splicer hordes. And there was something else. Elizabeth already felt her hands shaking when she heard the resounding clamps of metal boots nearby. She did not even register Sally's happy exclaim beside her.

"Daddy!"


End file.
